1. Field of the Invention
Vehicle engine cooling systems are critical to continued operation of the engines and one of the most problematical portions of an engine cooling system is the heat exchanger or radiator thereof. One or two tubes of a radiator may be damaged by impact thereon by a foreign object such as a rock (or bullet) or by metal or solder joint fatigue or corrosion. One or two leaking tubes ultimately will result in excessive of loss of coolant and overheating of the associated engine if operation thereof is not terminated.
Such breakdowns experienced by passenger vehicles are troublesome and usually very expensive if they occur during a long road trip and similar breakdowns experienced by over-the-road trucks also can be very expensive from a repair standpoint and, even more importantly, from a standpoint of equipment and operator downtime. Further, security and VIP carrying vehicles, in many instances, cannot afford avoidable breakdowns of this type.
The engine cooling system of the instant invention utilizes a coolant radiator including a plurality of relatively isolated radiator sections and structure is provided operative (responsive to an elevated coolant temperature alarm or a low level engine coolant alarm) to isolate each radiator section from the other radiator sections, pressure test each radiator section, maintain a radiator section failing the pressure test isolated from the remainder of the cooling system while allowing the radiator sections passing the pressure test to again be opened to the remainder of the cooling system exclusive of the pressure test failing radiator section and then add liquid coolant to the system to replace coolant lost therefrom by the pressure test failing isolated radiator section.
2. Description of Related Art
Various different structures for pressurizing and testing cooling systems heretofore have been provided such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,936,610, 2,981,095, 3,650,147, 4,102,178, 4,235,100, 4,342,220, 4,458,523 and 4,667,507. However, these previously known radiator pressurizing and testing structures do not include the overall combination of structural features incorporated in the instant invention.